RicOlie_2

S-19

I see a possible flaw with the spacing thing. If a person were to capture a piece that landed on every second square, they could checkmate their opponent by dropping it right in from of the ramshead soldier. The RS wouldn't be able to take the piece, since it would have to jump over it, and the king would be trapped. Having a piece in front of the RS would probably help that, so I think we should put a silver general or something in that spot in order to prevent a cheap checkmate like that. Maybe you think that would be OK though. Thoughts?

P-18

Sounds good.

SC-24

My dad's theory is that the real world is right outside the movie, meaning that the whole thing is a dream, and that Mal was right all along. Her appearances in the dreams are usually her going into the dreams attempting to convince Dominic that he is still dreaming, rather than his projection of her. It's an interesting idea, but I haven't studied it enough to be sure if it would actually fit with the movie.

Galileo was certainly unjustly accused over a misinterpretation of the Bible. Yes, I would love to be able to change that in his favour, but as for representing him, I think I would have ended up being declared a heretic and tossed into jail or something like that. Some very narrow-minded people have been in high positions in the Church throughout history.

I think it works pretty well. We're playing with the gold general being the demoted value and the silver general being the promoted value, correct? I just want to make sure the gold general was intentional since you have the gold general being the promoted value in your notes on the right.

I'm fine with leaving the lion out of it for now. If we want to add it, or another piece, back in, we can put it on the square in front of the ramshead soldier since the RS jumps over that square anyway.

Let's test it, shall we?

Bingowings said:

I doubt if they believed it to be literally the truth in ancient Sumeria either.

I am responding to your statement that "[y]ou are a Catholic and the tradition of Catholic doctrine stems from a literal interpretation of the allegorical/symbolic literature most people call The Bible" and apparently misread "The Bible" as "Genesis." It depends on which part of the Bible you're referring to. The books of Jonah, Tobit, a lot of Genesis, etc., are not generally considered literal.

Did I ever tell you I met Bill Gamesh (he hates it when you get his name wrong)?

 It took me a moment to get that. :D

February 11:

660 B.C.: Traditional date for the founding of Japan.

A.D. 55: Roman Emperor Tiberius dies, clearing the way for Nero's reign.

A.D. 385: Siricius becomes Bishop of Rome and is the first to style himself "Pope."

A.D. 1531: King Henry VIII becomes head of the Anglican Church after its schism with Rome.

Bingowings, St. Augustine recognized in the 4th century that the Genesis creation story could not be literal. Some have since taken it as entirely literal, but the idea that it is allegorical is not recent.

darth_ender said:

Well, I haven't messed up that setup on my board if you want to continue playing, but I'd almost rather skip the mess with the first four pieces.  I guess if you want to take back your last move, we could go from there with the alternate arrangement of those pieces.

I think we should spend some more time looking at the game and then start over.

JEDIT: Of course then we'd have two gold generals.  I wish I'd played this with someone when I first came up with these rules, but I was all by my lonesome without any shogi partner :'( *sniff*

See my above post for my solution, of course.

I honestly think we will need to start over.  We haven't gotten too far, and I may want to adjust the other pieces for now as well.  And I do need to work tomorrow.  What I will do is spend a few more minutes seeing if I like a different setup (probably similar to what you have already done).  I will send you my Excel spreadsheet (probably in the morning), either to play with or to rearrange your own.  Sorry about the bad news and lack of progress.

Can attachments be sent via PMs, or do we need each other's emails?

I have three variations of the board mocked up, because as I said above, I'm not replacing them as I go, which will be useful in the future, I think. I'm OK with ironing out the flaws, so don't apologize. The longer we spend fixing it up, the more fun it will be to play.

darth_ender said:

Just a minute of looking helped me come up with something else.  Right now I'm just referring to the first four pieces that get in each others' ways so often:

P
N
S
Gs

So I move the knight forward, replace the iron general with a silver general (with a gold general on the reverse) and place that piece third, and have the goose in back.  This allows the pawn, knight, or goose the first move.  Once the pawn or knight has moved, the silver may move.  One may move the pawn and knight, or silver and knight, without having to move any other pieces forward.  See, this was part of the problem: once you moved one of your pieces forward, you had to move it again just to move another piece, and thus place your first piece in danger.  This way two pieces may move.  The silver and goose also have an option for retreat.  So a player, even with such weak starting pieces, can still rearrange the pieces a bit as part of his opening moves.  What do you think?

I think that sounds good. I'll adapt my mock-up accordingly. There will still be a gold general/lion on the board though, correct?

Instead of replacing each mock-up, I'm adding new ones on my spreadsheet. That way, I'll be able to see the evolution of the game and also go back to a version we thought worked better without having to recreate it.

I should make sure that we are on the same page here: the gold  moves just like the silver, only it steps one backwards instead of jumping 2 backwards.  

 That is what I understood. With those moves, perhaps the gold general ought to promote to a silver general since the silver general can retreat more quickly. I say we have a gold general/silver general close to the front and a silver general/lion in the back.

darth_ender said:

Well, I'm unhappy with this already.  First, I had my board set up incorrectly, but now that I've fixed it, I don't see how you could have moved your Silver Cannon to 22.  I am not blaming you, but as we are working from our own separate Excel creations, we may have things different enough to cause such an miscommunication.

I made a mistake that I forgot to point out. I was missing a space and meant 23, not 22.

I see what you mean. N-18

NeverarGreat said:

generalfrevious said:

We live in an age of extremes. You cannot have a reasonable position on any issue anymore. I don't know how to look for the good in things; can anyone help me?

...

If you want to start with a small change to improve your outlook, consider perhaps changing the broken record in your signature. It's hard to look at something like that every day and not get discouraged. I'd suggest Beethoven's Symphony #9.

;)

 (For those of you who didn't get that, he's referring to the bit of Symphony 9 commonly known as "Ode to Joy")

LOL

@generalfrievous:

I'm truly sorry you feel that way. Just realize that the Church has certain teachings for a reason, and as some things are not laid in stone, there are some things that may be changed in the future. For instance, the celibacy of the priesthood is only a discipline and not a doctrine or dogma, therefore it could be changed. The Church may also eventually loosen its teachings on abortion in certain situations, though abortion itself will never be permitted of course. The Church teaches that abortion is allowed in cases where the mother will lose her life if she tries to carry the baby to term since it is a choice between both of them losing their lives and just the unborn child. I think this is also applicable in cases where a mother may commit suicide if she is forced to deliver the baby alive, but abortion should always be a last resort and the mother should seek therapy/counselling of some kind first. Some people, including priests, have overly strict understandings of the rules of the Church and become like the Pharisees in the gospels who focused on the letter of the law and imposed all kinds of unnecessary restrictions on the other Jews.

Don't feel to disheartened by it all and feel free to ask questions in my Q&A thread (which I can bump for you if you don't want to go searching for it). I know you are a Catholic, but it might help to hear answers from a different perspective and I might be able to help you better understand certain Church teachings that are commonly misunderstood or improperly emphasized or under-emphasized. If you want, we can just have a discussion there and talk about the Catholic Church. You can complain and ask semi-rhetorical questions, and I can respond and go from there.

I'm OK with the lion being able to change direction and whatnot, as long as it can't move more than two squares. I just realized that changing direction would really be the same as the igui move in this game anyway, so it wouldn't allow for two captures. I was just worried that a piece as powerful as a lion would be a bit too destructive on a board this size. It might not be so bad in reality though, since it is probably a lot easier to have all your pieces covered with only one row to worry about. Anyway, we'll see. By "use what we have for now" you mean with the lion being able to move as you suggested, right?

Go ahead and take your time. I'm in no hurry. :)

We have a bunch in our basement from the previous owners of our house. I can't remember most of the movies off the top of my head though.

Generalfrievous, try looking at the bright side of life. Count the number of things good about a particular thing instead of being pessimistic. For instance, you're complaining about living in the worst country on the planet. Remember that it is a first world country, you have the freedom to believe what you want to believe, you can speak your mind on most subjects without going to jail or being executed, you have so few things to worry about that you actually have time to complain about George Lucas and post on this site, you don't have to wonder if you're going to be able to eat tomorrow, or watch yourself lose weight as you starve to death, you have the opportunity to go to the hospital in case of serious injury or sickness, you don't have to work every single day in order to survive (so I presume--I certainly hope that isn't the case), you have the opportunity to vote for the person you want in office and that person cannot ever have absolute authority over you, you don't have to worry about having your house bombed and your family killed, etc., etc., etc.

Don't think you're living in the worst country, because you're far from it. Count your blessings, not your curses.

TV's Frink said:

generalfrevious said:

How can any human being murder another human being that can survive outside the mother? It makes me want to throw up.

darth_ender said:

I agree with your last two sentences very much.

I'm sorry I make you guys want to throw up.

 If I understand your situation correctly, Frink, your child would not have been able to survive outside the womb. Therefore you wouldn't make them want to throw up.

I look forward to hearing your replies later on. Meanwhile, I've gotta go for a few hours.

We could invent a new piece: the lynx.

It would be able to move two squares forward or backwards, and could capture twice. It would be weaker than the lion in that it wouldn't be able to switch direction, but it would still be able to jump over other pieces.

What do you think? :)

Umm...wrong thread?

Your hero! Now that's tempting...

Unfortunately, I'm not much of a Calvin & Hobbes fan (it isn't that I dislike it, I just never got into it). Otherwise I would be willing to humour you. :)

Haha, no worries. :)